The GOP Could Learn a Lesson from the Target Boycott

Earlier this morning, I was reading an article from American Thinker written by Sierra Rayne about the ongoing boycott against the chain store Target. For those not familiar with the boycott, since the Lame Stream Media won’t report on it, Target came out about a month ago with the policy that people could use the bathroom or fitting room of the gender they identified as. Some Christian groups as well as groups fearing for the safety of women and female children were concerned that this would quickly succumb to abuse from sex offenders, called for a boycott of the store. In the article, Rayne shows how the boycott has been directly responsible for a loss by Target of approximately $9.2 billion over the last month. Of course, the aforementioned media attributes the loss on anything from climate change to the upcoming vacation season (or other such moronic assertion). They can’t attribute it to so many people disagreeing with the LGBT agenda. After all, Walmart didn’t make any such announcement on bathroom policy and they met expectations while Target, over the same period showed a 5% loss.

The lesson that needs to be learned is the free market works. If a business does something that their customer base does not approve of, that base will move on, given other options. Customers of Target had other options and they left Target in droves because of this policy allowing men into bathrooms with little girls.. Now that the store has lost those people, can they bring them back to the store? Probably not without a change in policy, but that would make the estimated three percent of the population that belong to the LGBT community. Smart businesses will look at this and learn the lesson that business is market driven and it’s not wise to do something that drives that market away.

In reading this, it occurred to me that this is a lesson that should be learned in other endeavors. The Republican Party came to mind. For years, every Republican candidate has declared his bonafides as a Conservative in order to win their primaries. As soon as they are running for the general election, they go back to their moderate or progressive talking points, making them little different than the Democrat candidate. The GOP establishment figures the Conservative has little choice but to vote for him, the Republican, so they start going for the crossover vote.

This year might prove different. There were some Democrats that changed parties to Republican during primary season, but how many will actually vote Republican? Meanwhile, on the Republican side, people have left the Republican Party ( I will after June 7th) and the Libertarian ranks have increased. Too many voters have had enough of the GOP moving to the left so far, it’s now left of center! Will the GOP learn the lesson Target is facing and work to be more embracing of Conservative viewpoints or will they go the way of the Whigs?